C169 — [6.35 — Strange Stories in Fengjia Town]

In the deep corridor of the church, there was a constant sound of a man’s wanton laughter, which seemed grotesque and terrifying in this bloody and muddy environment.

He was completely different from the gentle and sunny person he was in front of the priest.

The police officer shivered as he pressed against the wall, looking at the wet floor surrounded by blood, wishing he could curl himself up into a ball and crawl into the crack in the ground.

It was also at this moment that he realized that the gloomy townsman before was just a small warning, his attitude had been too gentle.

If he really got ruthless, he would have been chopped into pieces long ago.

Just like what was happening in front of him now.

Bang–!

Bang–!

Amid the continuous chopping sounds, the police officer watched Gu Yin dig out a body with many arms from the flesh and blood.

Although it looked very deformed and didn’t look like a normal human being, it still had some human form.

Gu Yin used a sharp knife to cut the skin of the body and used an axe to chop the bones, chopping the body into a pile of rotten flesh that was no longer in human form.

The skin was torn, the flesh and bones were separated, and thick blood plasma spilled all over the ground.

If the bones weren’t too hard to cut through, they would have been chopped into pieces.

Although neither party was human, the sight of blood and flesh flying everywhere still made the police officer feel nauseous; his face turned pale as he vomited.

Especially when Gu Yin was slashing, he couldn’t control his excitement and loudly laughed, which was extremely creepy.

The terrified police officer tried to run away, but found that there was rolling flesh and blood all around him.

Blocked by the invisible mist, the flesh and blood couldn’t get close to Gu Yin and could only move around with its fangs and claws. Once in range, he would be torn into pieces by these restless flesh and blood.

With no other options, the police officer could only tremble as he continued to hide in the corner, praying to God in front of the blood-stained angel sculpture on the wall.

This place was more or less a church, he hoped it could play a role.

As he prayed, he thought of the priest again.

He really didn’t know why the priest chose this terrible man as his fiancé.

He must have been deceived!

The police officer’s teeth were chattering; he was sure that the priest was definitely the only normal person left in the town. He must have been bewitched by this terrible ghost called Gu Yin.

That was what was said in those supernatural stories, that ghosts would confuse humans and make them think that ghosts were their relatives or something like that.

Although the priest was bewitched by a ghost, it cannot be blamed on him. It could only be blamed on the ghost being too scary and bewitching everyone in the town.

If he could escape by chance, he would definitely let the priest know the truth, but he was afraid that after Gu Yin dealt with the corpse with several arms, he would come to deal with him as a witness.

This possibility was very high.

The police officer really regretted taking on the task of investigating the missing person; he should have simply returned to the police station after getting lost.

He really regretted coming here to seek his own death.

Just when he was so frightened that his mind went blank, he suddenly found a road appearing among the flesh and blood around him.

There was always a way out, it must be God’s blessing!

However, before he could rush over to escape, the police officer spotted a familiar figure.

It was the priest!

“Father! Run! Let’s go!”

In his ecstasy, the police officer had no time to think about how the priest had managed to pass through the flesh and blood safely. He stood up trembling and prepared to pull the priest away to run.

At this moment, in his eyes, the priest was simply the savior of the end times, arranged by God to save him. That beautiful face was so beautiful that it was beyond words in the corridor covered with blood and flesh.

However, the police officer never expected the priest to avoid him.

The priest’s slender, white hand dodged his hand without hesitation.

The priest went forward, his expression no longer calm and composed, his fair face actually looked a little serious and cold, but even so, he was still as beautiful as ever.

Especially the scarlet wedding robe, which made the skin on the priest’s neck look as eye-catching as white jade.

The police officer was stunned for a moment, but he didn’t stop instead he stood in front of the priest.

But when the priest saw him running towards him, he just glanced at him calmly, pushed him away and continued walking forward.

The priest had always been thin, and the slim wedding suit made him look elegant, with a well-proportioned figure, and he didn’t look too strong.

But at this moment, he pushed the police officer aside effortlessly, giving the police officer a feeling that he was even more threatening than Zhou Yuan, who was said to have rich practical experience.

The police officer was stunned for a moment, then immediately chased after him after he came to his senses.

“Father, what’s wrong with you? Stop now! It’s scary ahead! Don’t go over there, or someone will die!”

He tried to stop the priest, but his trembling body was unable to catch up. He could only watch the priest getting closer and closer to the scene where Gu Yin’s body was dismembered.

He didn’t dare to get any closer, and could only call out in a low voice without disturbing the terrifying Gu Yin as much as possible: “Father! There’s a dead person ahead, don’t get any closer!”

In the minds of the police officer, the priest was a gentle and kind person, very consistent with the teachings of the Catholic Church, and was what all believers’ ideal priest.

Such a person shouldn’t die at the hands of the monster Gu Yin.

The police officer was so worried that he almost cried. He really couldn’t imagine how desperate the priest would be when he saw his fiancé dismembering someone so brutally.

If it were him, he would probably collapse to the ground in fear.

 

In fact, he was almost paralyzed with fear and didn’t even dare to look over there.

But in the end, his worry about the priest prevailed, and he continued to approach carefully, thinking that if the priest could still be saved, he might be able to sneak over and rescue the priest.

Although this possibility was slim, it wasn’t impossible.

 

The most frightening thing was seeing the priest lying on the ground covered in blood, chopped to pieces by an axe.

However, the sad police officer saw the most unbelievable scene.

He saw that the priest’s fiancé, who was holding the axe high, stopped and his face, which was originally covered with a ferocious smile, turned pale.

The excited laughter that had been heard while the body was being dismembered just now suddenly stopped. Not only that, Gu Yin’s expression also became blank.

What followed was visible helplessness.

It actually gave the police officer a feeling of confusion and fear as if a large dog had been discovered by his owner after doing something bad.

But how was this possible?

Could such a scary ghost be afraid of something? impossible!

The police officer suspected that he was dreaming.

Especially after seeing the priest hugging the horribly mutilated corpse on the ground, he was completely stunned.

Lying on the bloody and muddy floor, the deformed corpse of the evil ghost looked even more miserable than anything he had seen before.

His limbs were torn into pieces, and even his head was almost chopped off.

The bloody body could only be called a corpse. Any normal person would scream in fear upon seeing the appearance of this corpse, let alone approaching it.

But the priest in red wedding clothes held the corpse in his arms without any disgust.

The upper body of the corpse was disemboweled, and the ribs were clearly visible and exposed outside the skin, revealing the empty chest cavity.

Although there were no internal organs, blood continued to seep out from the opening of the abdomen. The priest frowned and clenched the arms of the corpse that were twisted from being hacked.

He let the dirty blood and flesh stain his palms and soak his sleeves, holding them carefully, as if they were treasures.

The corpse’s arm seemed to feel it as well, trembling and grasping the priest’s fingers with all its might.

If one ignored the body parts all over the ground, the scene actually gave people a sense of déjà vu of angels redeeming the world in the Bible.

Looking at this scene, the police officer thought blankly that maybe his previous thoughts were wrong, what only normal person? What angel?

There were no normal people left in this town.

No normal person would show such a gentle, almost morbid expression towards a pile of broken flesh and blood like the priest did.

The police officer had met many priests of the Catholic Church. They were usually sanctimonious and greedy. None of them was as beautiful and gentle as the priest. He seemed perfect, which made the police officer, an atheist, feel that the Catholic Church was worthy of belief and he wanted to convert immediately.

But equally, no priest would show such tenderness in the face of something so horrible and ugly.

The police officer couldn’t help thinking that the whole world was absurd.

He saw the twisted love hidden beneath the priest’s beautiful and holy appearance.

It frightened him far more than the madness revealed by Gu Yin.

*

In the evil ghost’s memory, there were very few times when he felt warm.

The earliest memory was his mother’s crazy whispers and warm embrace.

And the subsequent pain of being hacked into a pile of minced meat by a machete.

When he grew up, he got tired of the dark and lonely days in the jungle and enviously spied on the people in Fengjia Town.

For the first time, he knew that humans could hold hands, hug each other, and laugh happily, instead of hiding in damp caves like Him, living day after day.

He longed for a life like an ordinary person, learned human language, and successfully made a friendly friend. For the first time, he felt the warmth between people.

But what followed were traps, attacks, screams and blood.

The crowd gathered around, everyone’s face was hideous and terrifying, they were shouting and cursing.

Amid the roar of the chainsaw, his head fell off and he saw his friend’s receding back.

So, he felt that after the warmth came pain.

Warmth was always short-lived. There was no warmth without cost.

Now, the evil ghost felt his cold palm being held, and the other person’s warm body temperature was transmitted to him.

So warm.

So comfortable.

It was more comfortable than any warmth he could remember, and more addictive than that.

So the pain afterwards would be even more painful.

The evil ghost was in a trance and was actually a little scared.

It wasn’t that he was afraid of pain, but he was afraid of losing this short-lived warmth.

If possible, He would be willing to endure more pain, just to make this warm feeling last a little longer.

In that case, no matter how painful it was, it didn’t matter.

The evil ghost’s body was already covered with wounds, and his other self knew best how to make him feel pain.

So every attack of Gu Yin directly affected his soul, making it impossible for the ghost to repair the wound directly, and his recovery speed was very slow.

As a result, this human-like body was now covered with wounds of varying sizes, the openings were bloody and revealed the flesh and bones inside.

There were still traces of the parts that were dismembered before death, and one could see the traces of him being chopped and dismembered with weapons such as axes and forks before death.

When Gu Yin attacked, he didn’t hesitate to deepen the wound again.

 

Because he knew that for the ghosts who died tragically, the wounds they sustained in life would always hurt.

That was the only place that hurt the most and could never be healed by any supernatural power.

The evil ghost didn’t care about the pain, or rather, he had gotten used to it.

He just tried hard to control his arm, even though the tendons were cut and bones were twisted and deformed; he just wanted to hold the warm palm tightly.

Just a little more time, just a little more, and he could endure a hundred times the pain afterwards.

Thinking of this, the ghost’s barely restored hearing caught a gentle soothing voice: “It hurts.”

“I’m sorry I’m late.”

The evil ghost’s hand was clenched tightly, and even his remaining body was embraced in an extremely warm embrace.

“Don’t be afraid, it won’t be so painful anymore.”

It was the priest’s voice.

The priest didn’t die by his hands.

The priest no longer even looked at Him indifferently, but held Him gently in his arms.

After a moment, as if feeling heartbroken, the priest gently kissed the evil ghost’s bloody forehead.

After feeling this kiss, the evil ghost’s vague consciousness trembled, and the restless flesh and blood in the entire town calmed down.

His entire face was chopped off by the Gu Silver, and his facial features turned into a pile of rotten flesh, almost indistinguishable from each other. Even his lips and jawbone were gone, leaving only an ugly and grotesque body.

And even then, He got a kiss.

“Does it still hurt?” the priest asked in a low voice, as if he was afraid that the loud noise would hurt the broken body in his arms.

This was the first time anyone cared whether He was in pain or not.

Everyone just thought of him as a monster, so no matter how cruel the means were, they wouldn’t hesitate to use them.

No one cared about the pain of a monster, and over time, even he himself didn’t care.

When asked by Jiu Shu, the fierce ghost suddenly realized that he also felt pain.

Even at the beginning, as a snake, He was more afraid of pain than ordinary people.

The pain of being dismembered when dying tormented Him for a long time, causing Him to wander and wail for a long time after death. Even after taking revenge, He could only continue to endure the pain, so He learned to become crazy in order to ignore the pain.

It was also the first time that the vengeful ghost discovered that when one was cared for, the pain would also be reduced, and instead, there would be an urge to cry.

He grabbed Jiu Shu’s hand and wanted to answer him.

But his lips were missing, he was only able to move his head with difficulty, getting closer to Jiu Shu’s arms.

If He could receive such a warm embrace by enduring the pain, He wouldn’t feel uncomfortable at all.

Jiu Shu looked at the punished person who was chopped to pieces in his arms, his brows slightly furrowed, and he looked up at Gu Yin.

“Gu Yin, I told you not to hurt yourself.”

His lover’s voice was faint, and no emotion could be heard in it, but it made Gu Yin panic in an instant.

He finally remembered to let go of axe he had been holding in his hand, and it fell to the ground with a dull thud.

He wanted to explain, but he couldn’t help the fear in his heart, and he couldn’t even maintain a smile.

In the end, he could only explain with a trembling voice: “I’m sorry, dear, I, I…”

He wanted to say those words, as he had planned before, to say that the evil ghost was the first to attack and put all the blame on the evil ghost.

But looking at Jiu Shu’s clear and calm eyes, he found that he had no way of lying to Jiu Shu.

It wasn’t until this moment that he realized that if he lied, how would he be different from the evil ghost that had hurt his lover?

That had also hurt the priest’s heart.

Gu Yin’s lips trembled, and the smile on his face was uglier than crying.

He half-knelt in front of Jiu Shu, wanting to apologize to his lover, but he saw from his lover’s beautiful pupils that he was now covered in blood.

There were still traces of blood splattered on Gu Yin’s pale face, and the dark long-sleeved shirt he had specially changed into was also stained with large patches of blood.

He looked like a murde-rer.

In this state, even if he lowered his posture, he couldn’t avoid the lingering murde-rous intent.

He wiped his cheek in panic, but found that his hands were also covered in blood and couldn’t be wiped clean no matter what.

He could only become more panicked: “Honey, I’m sorry, I’m really sorry, I didn’t mean to deceive you, I was just, just too afraid that you would get hurt.”

“That’s why I acted on impulse. I’m sorry. I was wrong. I won’t do it again. Please forgive me, okay?”

Gu Yin showed a pleading expression and wanted to grab Jiu Shu’s hand and beg for forgiveness as usual.

However, he found that Jiu Shu hadn’t let go of the evil ghost in his arms. The partial attitude made Gu Yin’s face turn even paler. He paused for a long time, and withdrew his hand quietly without saying anything.

Gu Yin had always been concerned about the fact that the evil ghost had tried to harm the priest. At that time, the evil ghost was unscrupulous towards the priest, not caring at all that the priest was just a fragile human. Every time he thought about it, he gnashed his teeth in hatred.

What was more, as the same soul, it could sense the thoughts of the evil ghost.

Especially those evil thoughts of him wanting to pull out the priest’s tendons and bones.

Those thoughts that drove him crazy just thinking about them still made him feel irritable and uneasy.

The happier he was, the more he thought that if he hadn’t become strong and allowed the evil ghost to hurt the priest, perhaps those thoughts would have really become reality.

He would never see his priest again.

This kind of uneasiness could only be eliminated if the evil ghost disappeared completely.

 

After hearing Gu Yin’s apology, Jiu Shu didn’t say much. He continued to look at him and asked, “Is this the only reason?”

Gu Yin’s expression became unnatural after hearing this. He hesitated for a moment, but still told the truth: “And jealousy.”

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t be jealous.” Gu Yin’s voice was extremely frustrated.

Gu Yin didn’t want to appear too petty in front of his beloved priest, because he knew that a husband who was too easily jealous would be unpopular and wouldn’t be able to keep his lover’s heart.

But his intuition told Gu Yin that he could no longer lie.

 

Gu Yin didn’t want to continue lying.

In other words, he shouldn’t have lied to his lover from the beginning. This wasn’t what a qualified husband should do.

He was just blinded by jealousy.

He didn’t want to see the priest favoring evil ghost, but he had to face this favoritism.

Ultimately, his hatred for the evil ghost was due to his fear that the evil ghost would hurt the priest again.

And he was afraid that He would take away the priest.

To the point where he became unrecognizable and started lying to his lover.

“I’m too afraid of losing my darling…I’m sorry…”

Gu Yin lowered his head; his long hair draped over his shoulders, making it impossible to see his expression. One could only vaguely see tears dripping onto the floor, merging with the blood.

In front of the priest, Gu Yin was always worried and anxious. Even after confirming the priest’s love for him, he still couldn’t help feeling uneasy, especially after discovering the priest’s preference for the evil ghost.

This kind of uneasiness and madness spread in his heart.

In front of Jiu Shu, he still seemed to be the monster Gu Yin that could only hide in the dark corners, without a beautiful appearance, covered with ugly stitches, not daring to admit his own feelings, and could only use inferior love gu to seduce people’s hearts. In fact, he wasn’t qualified to get close to the glamorous priest.

He hated his former self so much, so naturally he hated the other self who tried to snatch the priest away even more.

Even though he knew that he and the evil ghost were the same person, he couldn’t help but feel jealous.

Gu Yin knew that this jealousy and anxiety would erode the priest’s love for him. This was how the resentful couples in ordinary families in his memory were formed.

He also wanted to change, but he was powerless.

Knowing that the priest loved him, if it were before he had a beautiful appearance, he would have been satisfied with just this.

But after all, he still had the bad qualities common to all human beings. He became greedy and insatiable. He wanted to get more, but at the same time he didn’t want to share the priest’s love. He wanted the priest to belong to him forever.

But this seemed impossible now.

The tears fell more and more, but there was no sound of crying

Gu Yin just lowered his head and remained silent, his blood-stained fingers trembling subconsciously, afraid that he wouldn’t be forgiven by his lover.

Jiu Shu lowered his eyes and looked at his trembling fingers, and sighed: “Don’t let it happen again.”

“I love both of you equally and I don’t favor either of you.” Jiu Shu spoke about the knot that Gu Yin cared about the most, as if he could read Gu Yin’s mind.

As he spoke, he freed one hand to wipe the tears from Gu Yin’s face.

“Does it sound a bit fickle?” After wiping away the tears, Jiu Shu was about to move his hand away, but the silent Gu Yin carefully held it in his hand.

Jiu Shu let him hold his hand, and continued, “It’s just because I love you so much, so no matter which one of you you are, I love you all, and I’ll be sad if either one of you gets hurt.”

“I just want to see the whole you.”

After he finished speaking, Jiu Shu’s hand was held even tighter by the pale big hand, revealing the other party’s fluctuating emotions.

Faced with the current situation of fratricide, Jiu Shu actually felt somewhat helpless.

Similar things had been said many times, but it seemed to have little effect.

This reminded Jiu Shu of the world where he first saw this person being punished. It seemed to be the same, full of contradictions, fighting back and forth, and no one would listen to advice.

The situation in the previous worlds had obviously been gradually improving, but now it had returned to its old state and even seemed to have worsened.

Jiu Shu frowned, his thoughts drifting away; he wondered if there was any involvement of the system.

It could be seen that the system was becoming more and more impatient. This world had turned him into the villain in the plot, and he would afraid it would continue to use some tricks in the next world.

Jiu Shu withdrew his thoughts, glanced at the system panel, the imprisoned system, and the energy bar that was about to be filled, with a calm expression.

When the energy was accumulated, he could go home.

Jiu Shu suddenly became curious, could the person being punished actually perceive this? Would this cause anxiety and lead to greater divisions?

Jiu Shu didn’t know.

He put away the system panel, stood up holding the body in his arms, and comforted the evil ghost softly: “I’ll take you to rest and bandage your wounds.”

He knew that although the vengeful ghost couldn’t make a sound, it could hear him speak.

Sure enough, the ghost twitched its fingers. Without any resistance, it clung even more tightly to Jiu Shu’s hand.

Seeing this, Jiu Shu continued walking toward his room. As he walked, the flesh masses that had been fighting for territory in the chapel gradually vanished.

It was unclear whether they had truly disappeared or merely become invisible within the ghost domain.

Jiu Shu didn’t pay much attention to that—he just felt the path was easier to walk now.

The hallway wasn’t actually far from his room; it had only seemed that way before because the flesh blocked the way. Now, he realized he was nearly there after just a short walk.

“Darling, let me carry it for you.”

Gu Yin, who had been trailing obediently beside him, reached out in a flattering gesture, trying to help share the burden.

The vengeful ghost had been hacked down to less than half its body and was recovering very slowly. It didn’t look especially heavy, but Gu Yin had handled its corpse before—he knew this thing’s bones were incredibly dense. Even just half of it wasn’t light.

He didn’t want Jiu Shu to be overburdened.

At least, that was how it appeared on the surface. Whether it was actually because he was jealous of how close the ghost was sticking to his lover, Gu Yin didn’t show it.

Jiu Shu glanced at him and was about to say he wasn’t that fragile—that this weight was nothing to him—when he suddenly felt the ghost in his arms tremble. It seemed frightened. It wrapped its freshly repaired arm around Jiu Shu’s shoulder tightly.

A silent expression of rejection toward Gu Yin.

“…It’s okay, don’t be scared.” Jiu Shu looked down at the ghost, his voice softened, and his beautiful features became gentle.

He kept his full attention on the ghost, not sparing Gu Yin another glance.

To this, Gu Yin said nothing. He simply lowered his head meekly.

His tall frame carried no sense of threat. His eyes were filled only with love for his partner, as if he had finally learned not to be jealous.

Outside the chapel, the police officer who had just taken the opportunity to escape while the flesh had disappeared was rejoicing at having survived.

 

His expression was still dazed, clearly not yet recovered mentally, but survival was his priority now. All he could think of was running. His poor mental state didn’t affect his escape.

“I finally made it out!” he cried, nearly moved to tears as he looked back at the chapel. The thrill of snatching back his life was overwhelming

No one in this town was normal. Whoever wanted to stay could stay. He was determined to get out of here—fast.

However, it wasn’t long before the sky overhead darkened.

The officer checked the time—it was just around noon. It should’ve been sunny, but now all that remained was a gloomy sky.

He didn’t understand why, but it didn’t feel good. Swallowing nervously, he kept running toward the town’s edge, doing his best to avoid the terrifying townspeople, who had been bewitched by ghosts.

Strangely, the townspeople didn’t seem to notice him now.

The ones who had been busily preparing for a wedding were now eerily quiet. Each person stood alone, heads lowered, doing something unknown.

The officer carefully avoided them, but couldn’t help bumping into one standing in a corner. He heard the man mumbling something, though it wasn’t clear— he was furiously tearing at something with both hands.

Looking closer, he realized the man was scratching at his own arm, tearing at it until it was covered in blood.

Amid the increasingly bitter muttering, the officer finally made out the words: “Damn it, damn it, damn it! Why are they so close…”

“No, no, I’m not jealous, not jealous, I’m not jealous—” he repeated, like he was trying to hypnotize himself. But it clearly wasn’t working.

His grip grew more violent, gouging new bloody streaks into his arm, which healed rapidly only to be torn open again. The sight was deeply disturbing.

Then something seemed to set them all off.

The townspeople froze for a moment—even their murmuring stopped. The sound of grinding teeth followed, loud enough to shatter molars.

That damn homewrecker, always acting pitiful in front of his darling! Damn it, damn it, damn it!

---

TN:

It’s been soooo long, I was almost tempted to post everything I worked on at once, but I think y’all would prefer consistency.

So I have a stockpileeeeeee.

I can proudly say, see ya tomorrow (⁠≧⁠▽⁠≦⁠)